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Business big shot: Mario Greco

June 4 2012, 1:01am, The Times

Age 52 Position Chief executive, Generali

He’s the very model of a modern-day Italian technocratic business boss, but, until now, he had never run his own, fully independent business. That changed for Mario Greco on Saturday morning, when a very public coup at Italy’s biggest insurer Generali ended with the ousting of its chief executive of ten years, Giovanni Perissinotto.

Mr Greco is to leave the rival Zurich Insurance Group, where he has headed the general insurance division for two years and its life assurance arm for two years before that.

His challenge is to bind the wounds of a highly conservative and byzantine organisation, which only a year ago expelled its chairman Cesare Geronzi for “improper governance”, while also pushing ahead with reform and…